


Don't Fix It

by crimsonseekers



Series: Proverbs [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Seeker Trines, Starscream Gets A Hug, Starscream needs a hug, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 12:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonseekers/pseuds/crimsonseekers
Summary: “SHUT UP!”Starscream shrieked, losing his patience with them - what little he had, anyways. Thundercracker and Skywarp flinched away, Starscream’s static-filled and glitching voice grating over their audials about as gently as rock scraped against glass. “I’mfine,I’m notbroken.”





	Don't Fix It

**Author's Note:**

> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Skywarp and Thundercracker remembered when Starscream returned to Vos.

They couldn’t recognize his voice at first - a vocalizer that had once trilled beautiful, lilting tones had been damaged beyond repair. Apparently, on the backwater planet he had been exploring before he returned, he had snow gather in the seams of his throat. It had melted and refrozen there, cracking his vocal component. Now their trinemate sounded like a choking turbofox.

It was too expensive for them to replace - medical attention in the struggling city-state was expensive enough, let alone a full out replacement of any more intricate and delicate parts - such as a vocalizer.

Starscream had lost his position at the Academy in Iacon, being charged with the murder of his exploration partner and deported back to Vos - so his paycheck was gone. Thundercracker and Skywarp’s meager incomes could barely keep the three of them housed and fueled, let alone afford a new vocal component as well as the surgery required to swap them out.

There was no way for Starscream be a scientist again, either. Scientific centers weren’t exactly in abundance in Vos, and they didn’t pay much, even if there was one willing to take in an explorer/astrophysicist. Neither were fields in much demand in the city.

So he became a tactical officer with the Air Force.

Starscream’s murder charges weren’t too much of a hassle to work around - the Vosian government took accusations against seekers from outsiders with more than a grain of sodium. Outsiders were known to be biased, after all.

The job wasn’t anything too grand, but it paid enough that they were no longer living paycheck to paycheck. They no longer had to worry about being able to budget appropriately to get enough fuel whenever energon prices went up again. Still not enough for them to conceivably save enough to fix Starscream’s voice, but it was enough.

Starscream said it was fine, so they moved on.

Then Skywarp had come home one evening, raving about a new gladiator in Kaon called Megatron. After a few weeks of pestering, he had managed to convince both to sit down and watch one of his matches.

Starscream had spent the whole battle critiquing Megatron’s strategy, while Skywarp hushed him. Thundercracker looked vaguely sick when the other mechs head was torn off and held up as a sort of trophy.

Then Megatron began to speak.

All three had been enraptured immediately. His voice a low, deep rumble - one could feel it vibrate in their chassis, even threw the screen. He automatically demanded a sort of attention to be paid to him.

He spoke of frame discrimination and the struggle of lower and laboring classes - the blatant abuse of power by the elites in Iacon, by all those who held seats in the Senate.

He spoke of the Decepticon movement, the aim to take back the government and make a system that truly worked for the people, instead of for wealth and fame.

Starscream _loved_ it.

When Skywarp got laid off due to a sudden economic downturn, they couldn’t keep affording the fuel they needed each week - they just didn’t have the money anymore. No one would hire Skywarp either - nobody was eager to spend money on new laborers, not with energon prices so high.

They had nothing to stay in Vos for. So they moved to Kaon.

They joined the Decepticons. The movement was still small enough that they had gotten to talk to Megatron himself when they joined.

Starscream flirted with him. Thundercracker and Skywarp were affronted that he would even try such a thing with the gladiator - surely he had crowds and droves of fans and followers at his beck and call, just waiting for a chance to hop into his berth!

But, to their eternal surprise, Megatron flirted back, seemingly disregarding the screech of his vocalizer, optics raking up and down his slender frame in clear appreciation.

Thundercracker and Skywarp traded glances as they were quickly forgotten to the background.

That was the beginning of the tumultuous relationship between Starscream and Megatron that would become famous in both the Autobot and Decepticon forces.

And Skywarp and Thundercracker had front row seats to the rise and fall of their relationship.

They watched the way it grew - the glances across the room, the flirtatious remarks, lingering touches on each other's plating. Skywarp had snickered when Starscream had comm’d them, sounding heated and breathless as he told them he wouldn’t be returning to their shared quarters that night. Thundercracker had rolled his eyes and told their trine leader to have a good night out.

Things were good between the two - for a while.

But as the war heated up, and their conflicting opinions on military strategy started to intrude on their relationship as well. They fought quite a bit - and the fighting slowly turned physical as well.

Starscream continued staying in Megatron’s quarters.

Thundercracker and Skywarp remembered the first time they saw Megatron beat Starscream in the middle of the command center. They watched, horrified, as their leader’s claws sunk into Starscream’s wings, twisting and tearing them, as his powerful fists shattered his cockpit in rage. Then he left him there.

Thundercracker and Skywarp hurried him to the medical bay.

Starscream still went back to Megatron’s rooms that night.

They remembered the first time that Megatron had used Starscream’s vocalizer in a personal attack against him. Thundercracker had been surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner. It wasn’t even that bad of an insult, Megatron had simply called their trine leader ‘screechy’. However, even Skywarp wasn’t dense enough to not have noticed by then that his vocalizer was an _extremely_ touchy topic.

Starscream reclaimed his berth in their quarters that night.

And so the war carried on, Megatron and Starscream’s relationship continuing on as it had for vorn before that - simply without them making up their mistakes to each other every night by fragging each other's processors out.

Skywarp and Thundercracker’s relationship with Starscream continued to sour as well - were as before everything started going wrong they could have been called an ideal, perfectly content trine, by the time that Megatron had announced that they were to leave Cybertron in search of energon, they could barely stand to be in Starscream’s presence without arguing with him.

So they started calling him Screamer.

He started staying in Megatron’s quarters again. He didn’t talk to Thundercracker and Skywarp nearly as much after that.

Then they were on Earth.

Then _Skyfire_ showed up.

Thundercracker and Skywarp remembered Skyfire - they had met him on the few occasions they had managed to get travel visas to visit Starscream while he was studying in Iacon. They remembered how much he had grown to mean to Starscream, how much Starscream lit up and smiled in his company.

They remembered the calls home from Starscream - always talking about his lab partner and how fantastic they were. The tangible jubilance in his voice when he told them that Skyfire had agreed to go on a date with him.

They remembered the sweet tone of Skyfire’s voice when he had called them, asking for their permission to bond to Starscream. They told him yes (after a thorough threatening, that is).

They remembered the happy and joyful shriek of laughter that Starscream gave when Skyfire asked him, jumping into his arms and repeated ‘Yes’ like there was no tomorrow. Skyfire had been kind enough to video stream the event for them.

They couldn’t remember having ever seen Starscream as gleeful as he was when Skyfire asked him to bond. Thundercracker and Skywarp were happy for them.

Starscream had called them not too long afterward to tell them that they would bond after their debut exploration. They would hold the event in Vos.

Then Starscream and Skyfire left - off to explore the deep regions of space.

They didn’t return on time.

Starscream returned without Skyfire.

He got charged with murder based on circumstantial evidence and got deported to Vos when the Academy board decided they wanted to as distance themselves as far from the seeker scientist as possible.

And now Skyfire was back.

They were surprised that Starscream had held it together as long as he did.

There was no love lost between the fractured trine, but there was still the old, instinctual obligation to at least look out for each other that they still subscribed to. They may not have been each other's biggest fans anymore, but they were still trine. So they kept themselves within hearing distance as Starscream talked to Skyfire.

Skyfire was exactly the same, exactly how they remembered him being - but they were struck by how much Starscream had changed. He no longer grinned freely when he talked, didn’t laugh at Skyfire’s feeble attempts at humor.

There had been a weak smile present on Skyfire’s face since he had woken up and been told him how long he had been asleep, yet it slowly grew smaller the longer he talked to Starscream until he was actively frowning at the mech who had been his Intended, so many vorn ago.

When Starscream had ordered him to execute the Autobots, Skyfire had rejected him outright.

Skywarp had found it rich when Starscream called him a traitor.

But it stopped being funny when they found out that Skyfire had become more of a traitor than Starscream had ever been - Starscream had never outright defected, had never even gotten close to it.

When they reconvened after the battle, to gather the troops before heading back to base, they noticed the frozen ice on Starscream’s neck.

* * *

“Screamer-” Skywarp started, reaching out to touch Starscream’s shoulder, only to have his trine lead flinch away and glare at him.

 _“Don’t call me that!”_ Starscream hissed, though it sounded more like he was throwing static at them. Definitely cracked.

“Starscream, please,” Thundercracker tried diplomatically. “You’ve clearly cracker your vocalizer again, let’s just go see Hook in the medbay and see if he can fix-”

“No!” Starscream snapped at him, rattling his wings aggressively as he whipped around to glower at the two of them. “It’s _fine,”_ he growled.

“Listen, Scream- Starscream,” Skywarp tried again, holding his hands up peacefully as their trinemate dominantly flared his wings as if daring them to challenge him. “Listen to yourself, you’re talking static, you gotta admit it - your vocalizer probably kicked it, it’s broken-”

 _“SHUT UP!”_ Starscream shrieked, losing his patience with them - what little he had, anyways. Thundercracker and Skywarp flinched away, Starscream’s static-filled and glitching voice grating over their audials about as gently as rock scraped against glass. “I’m _fine,_ I’m not _broken,_ you two have no place to tell me-”

“That’s not what I said, Screamer,” Skywarp said dryly. Starscream howled and bared his sharp claws threateningly.

“How many times have I told you to _stop CALLING ME THAT?!”_

“Starscream,” Thundercracker attempting, trying to bring the situation down from where Skywarp had effortlessly escalated it. “Please, let’s just go to the medbay and get it fixed, okay?”

“I’m _not broken,”_ Starscream bleated desperately. “I’m not broken, you don’t need to _fix me-”_

It was at that moment that both Thundercracker and Skywarp realized what had been bothering Starscream all that time.

“Oh, Starscream,” Skywarp crooned sadly, gently taking their trine leader into his arms. “You’re not broken. _At all.”_

“Skywarp’s right,” Thundercracker said, tucking both of them close to his cockpit as joined the hug. “It’s not you, Star, you’re beautiful, you’re _perfect._ There’s absolutely _nothing_ wrong with you.”

“You may be a bit rough around the edges, but we wouldn’t have you any other way,” Skywarp added, a lopsided grin present on his face.

Starscream hiccuped as his wings shuddered in quiet sobs.

“Let’s just go have Hook take a look at your vocalizer, you’ll feel a lot better if you at least let him get the water and ice out of it, okay?” Thundercracker offered, slowly breaking away from the intimate embrace and taking Starscream’s servos in his own. He sniffed and nodded, optics focused on the ground.

“C’mon, Star,” Skywarp said, brushing his wings against Starscream’s in an intimate gesture none of them had performed in _vorn._ “Show us those pretty optics, yeah?” he asked, slowly tipping Starscream’s head until they could see his dark optics softly glowing in the gloomy corridors of their underwater base. Skywarp swooned dramatically. “Whoof, what a _stunner,_ amirite, TC?”

Starscream let out a startled, choked giggle at his trinemate’s antics.

“Oh, definitely,” Thundercracker grinned. Starscream flushed at their comments, a dorky smile they hadn’t seen in forever adorning his face. They’d almost forgotten how good the friendly banter amongst themselves felt. Thundercracker and Skywarp laid each laid a servo on Starscream’s lower back, gently guiding him down the hall and towards the medbay.

“C’mon, let’s get to the medbay,” Skywarp prompted, poking Starscream’s cheek, getting a half-hearted whack in return. “Let’s go, short stack, before the water gets into your wires.”

“‘M not _that_ short,” Starscream muttered sullenly.

“Oh, yes you are,” Skywarp retorted.

“Am not!” Starscream pouted.

“Shut up, you’re both short,” Thundercracker remarked easily. Skywarp and Starscream narrowed their optics at him dangerously as he gave them a cocky, Starscream-esque smirk.

It was nice.

Skyfire and Megatron could go frag themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> this is angstier than i intended it to be but at least i got to cram in some command trine fluff at the end
> 
> My [tumblr](https://crimsonseekers.tumblr.com)


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